Post navigation

Soon, extremely soon, I’m going to tell you more about our 12 days in Andalucía but before that, before summer is truly over, before I start thinking about cooking more complex meals again, before I even consider turning on the oven again, I wanted to tell you that this summer was the year I finally figured out how to make cacio e pepe, one of my favorite pastas, as good at you’d have in Rome, and we cannot let the summer end until you do too.

Huh? Deb, you wrote about it years ago, in 2011. But the recipe always bothered me, and the reason is written out right in it: authentic cacio e pepe contains only three sauce ingredients: pecorino romano (this is the cacio, the cheese), black pepper (this is the pepe, ground to your desired texture, often toasted first if you’re going for extra flavor), and pasta, plus splashes of the pasta’s hot starchy cooking water to form a sauce. It doesn’t contain oil, butter, cream, flour, cornstarch or any other binders. The trouble begins when you try to merge/coalesce/magic together water and cheese into an emulsified, creamy sauce. Ever tried to mix oil and water? In my kitchen, it goes about as well as you might imagine.

Frustrated in 2011, I added a little cream and butter* to make it work. But I never “finished” the recipe in my mind. Since then, I have tried — this is barely an understatement — every single 3-ingredient technique on the internet and in cookbooks I could track down, I have watched videos completely in Italian to try to glom how they do it, walked into the kitchen, repeated their exact steps, and failed every time. I try about 6 times a year. It’s been 7 years. I never, ever succeed in magic-ing pasta water and cheese into a smooth sauce. The cheese melts before it glues itself to the noodles, cementing itself instead to the pot, the bowl, the tongs, the stuff of dishwashing dread. I imagine this sounds familiar to others.

When someone emailed me (hi, Annie!) earlier this summer and told me about Flavio de Maio’s (of the restaurant Flavio Velavevodetto in Rome) method as shared by tour guide and Roman cooking expertElizabeth Minchilli on her site, I was fresh off my latest cacio flop and thanked her, but expressed my doubt that this would be This One. That was 2:12pm. At 6:12pm, I sent her a photo of our dinner and told her she’d changed my life, and I hope yours, possibly in the next 20 minutes.

* it was good enough for Batali, so it was good enough for me, I rationalized in 2011; what different times those were

I wrote a thing: I wrote an Op-Ed for the New York Times about a favorite subject — cooking and why it’s terrible and you should never do it. Here’s the link. I hope you read, uh, to the end.

Foolproof Cacio e Pepe

Here’s the magic of this technique: The recipe sticks to the 3-ingrdient-only premise, but it begins the sauce with cold water, forming the cheese and pepper into a thick, paste-like sauce, without any of the separated, gloppy cheese risk that can happen with pasta cooking water. No heat touches the sauce until it hits the piping hot pasta, so it melts only onto the noodles. At this point, you use spoonfuls of cooking water as needed to loosen it to a thick but lightly creamy consistency. And it works every time, which will I bet will a lot more often after today.

The traditional pasta used for cacio e pepe is tonnarelli, sometimes sold as spaghetti alla chittara, a squared-off, slightly thicker spaghetti, but you use what you can get. I’m using standard thickness spaghetti here. The traditional cheese used for cacio e pepe is pecorino romano, a sharp, salty aged sheep’s milk cheese. If you can only get parmesan, it works too, but you’ll probably need to add salt to the sauce. While the recipe below works as written, you’ll probably want to make adjustments to taste, and to the intensity, age, and saltiness of your cheese.

How much is “a lot” of freshly ground black pepper? It’s impossible to measure — too low in grams to register steadily on a scale, too varied in coarseness to measure in consistent measuring spoons, plus peppercorns vary in intensity, and your preference may not be someone else’s. Taste the cheese-pepper mixture. The pepper should be prominent and give it a sparkly kick. If you want more, add more. Remember that this sauce base will stretch over a lot of pasta, so if it tastes too intense, that’s probably correct. For what it’s worth, I counted 46 peppermill grinds on one batch, but I keep mine pretty tight/at a fine grind.

8 ounces dried spaghetti or tonnarelli

4 ounces aged pecorino romano, finely grated

A lot of freshly ground black pepper

Bring a pot of well-salted water to boil. Cook pasta to one minute shy of package instructions and taste for your desired doneness, cooking a minute longer if needed. We are not cooking the pasta and sauce further together on the stove, so the bite it has now is about what your final dish will.

While it’s cooking, combine all the pecorino (except a spoonful for garnish) and lots of freshly ground black pepper in a bowl. Add 1 tablespoon cold water and use an immersion blender to work it into a paste, adding additional cold water, 1 tablespoon at a time, only as needed. You want to form the mixture into a paste about the thickness of cream cheese or frosting. I use about 4 to 5 tablespoons total for this amount. Blend more than you think is needed; you want this paste as smooth as you can get it. You can do this same process in a food processor, even grinding the cheese in it instead of grating it first but it will require longer processing to get the rubble-like cheese smooth.

Before the pasta is done, scoop out a cup of hot cooking water and set it aside. Drain the pasta very quickly in a colander (no need to shake every drop of water off) and immediately drop it, piping hot, into a large bowl. Add 3/4 of cheese-pepper paste in dollops and toss to combine. It’s going to be too thick to form a sauce but once it has begun to coat the noodles, pour in one small ladleful of pasta water and toss, toss, toss (a lot of movement helps here) to loosen the paste into a lightly creamy consistency that evenly coats the spaghetti strands. Taste and add more of the cheese-pepper paste to taste, or use it all. Add more pasta water as needed only to loosen.

Finish with reserved pecorino and a few grinds of black pepper. Eat immediately.

275 comments on foolproof cacio e pepe

I know it is silly to comment on this particular recipe when I can not eat black pepper, but it looks SO good. Maybe I will try it without the pepper but with some minced garlic? It looks so easy and yummy! Thanks for the technique!

There’s nothing that says that you need to use copious amounts of black pepper. Maybe just a little wouldn’t bother you? Or, just omit the “pepe” part and do spaghetti “cacio.” Put the pasta water in a large bowl, add the pasta then the cheese and toss.

Yes, I have the same trouble with any chili, Tabasco, etc. but black pepper, especially coarsely ground is the ultimate worst for me. But as you say, pasta in a cheesy sauce without the pepper…certainly could not be bad! Thanks for your comment.

Unsure if your reaction is allergic or a spice sensitivity, but papaya seeds dried and ground tastes similar to black pepper. But black pepper is a big part (actually 1/3!) of the experience here, so you might just have to miss this one. I got through college on a version of cacio e pepe made with orzo, butter, parm and black pepper – tastes great without pepper, but not AS good.

Oh please don’t use anything but the 3 ingredients. This will absolutely be the best spaghetti experience, particularly since she gives you a step by step technique. To say it is magical would be an understatement; think of the perfect black dress, just adding pearls.

If you promise to not tell the internet on me, I’ve done the blasphemous thing of adding to cacio. 🤫 It can be wonderful with other additions. Fresh garlic, chopped fresh spinach allowed to wilt in the heat of the pasta, spritzes of fresh lemon juice, my favorite dried Italian herb seasoning (Ana’s Herbs brand) – have all graced my cacio both with and without the pepper. Some versions were improvised after running out of black pepper, then again forgetting that I still hadn’t bought black pepper. 🙈 Others were to get my “idk what you like about cacio – it’s too peppery yet bland” husband to get interested. Still yet, some made fairly well failed attempts at cacio edible. (I’ve been on a Cacio e Pepe kick since last November – well before reading about this trick.)
Good luck!!!

This looks wonderful! But I can also share the Italian method. The secret is a big bowl and two large forks. Put the pepper-oil mixture in a tempered bowl, add the pasta and half the reserved water. Then quickly move the forks back and forth, like you’re mixing a salad but more like quickly scraping along the bottom of the bowl, and occasionally mixing. Quick! Then, add the cheese in parts and continue the same motion, adding more water as needed. Silky smooth pasta with no need for a blender.

So it’s not just me that always ends up with a giant clump of cheese. I love a good life changing recipe. My favorite tip is to toast the peppercorns before you grind them. They’re a starring ingredient, might as well give them the star treatment.

Deb!!! This is in fact, LIFE CHANGING!! I was bored and hungry so I tried it. I had basic ingredients (parm, reg spaghetti and pepper.) I did add some salt…and I am completely sold! I will never life through the cleaning nightmare of clumped cheese. So delicious, so worth it!!!

Glad to hear it worked out! But rather than add salt to the cheese mixture or to the pasta afterwards, you can add a bit more to the cooking water. And you might need to if you’re using parmigiano. If you’re using true pecorino Romano it’s so salty that Roman restaurants keep a pot of water that has less salt boiling just for that

Genius! I usually add the cheese to the pot that the drained pasta has been returned to, and I do a marvelous job of coating the sides of the pot with the cheese. This is a MUCH more effective way to make one of my favorite comfort foods!

OMG. I was just trying to figure out what to make for lunch in the midst of canning 30 pounds of tomatoes and my kitchen is chaos. Saw this on IG and 15 minutes later, had the best, most perfect lunch (especially since I had some fresh pasta in the fridge that needed a use). You are my hero.

Totally, IMHO, unmeasurable in spoonfuls (the grind and intensity of peppercorns will vary too much) or weights (weights of a gram or three don’t register well on most digital kitchen scales). Try a pinch of the cheese-pepper mixture. You want it to have a sparkly kick that’s to your liking, and it should be on the strong side since it will next stretch over your pasta. I think I counted 46 grinds of pepper in one batch? But again, this measurement means very little. I keep my pepper grinder fairly fine.

If you’re unsure, I’ve had luck using about a good half a teaspoon of peppercorns in a mortar and pestle – I found the pepper tastier and the texture more varied but the downside being that chunk of pepper between your teeth that mysteriously reappears three hours later.

If you watch the video of the Italian guy making it, he’s making a bigger batch than in this recipe, but you can kind of get a sense of the proportion between the cheese in the bowl and the pepper he adds. After seeing that, I think I ended up using somewhere between half a tablespoon and a tablespoon. But it wasn’t precise.

You don’t want the pepper to be so strong that it dominates everything. But you need enough for it to be present.

I went to Rome last year and fell in LOVE with this dish. I’m fairly handy with pasta, but could NOT come close to the Cacio e Pepe I’d fallen in love with. The bowl was pasta would be gloppy mess. This just made it onto our menu for the week! YES!

How did I not come across this in Rome? I must’ve been looking in the wrong restaurants! I love the simplicity of this recipe and can’t wait to try it (although I’m hoping mine doesn’t become a gloppy mess). I’m always short on time and, usually, a fridge or larder full of ingredients. Booking marking now and going for it tomorrow night :)

A few people have asked now, so I just added this note to the headnotes for others:

How much is “a lot” of freshly ground black pepper? It’s impossible to measure — too low in grams to register steadily on a scale, too varied in coarseness to measure in consistent measuring spoons, plus peppercorns vary in intensity, and your preference may not be someone else’s. Taste the cheese-pepper mixture. The pepper should be prominent and give it a sparkly kick. If you want more, add more. Remember that this sauce base will stretch over a lot of pasta, so if it tastes too intense, that’s probably correct. For what it’s worth, I counted 46 peppermill grinds on one batch, but I keep mine pretty tight/at a fine grind.

Yes, you can definitely keep it in the fridge. And in fact, Flavio actually prepares it a minimum of 24 hours beforehand. This way the pepper really gets a chance to infuse into the oils of the cheese. If you put it in a tightly sealed container, like a jar, it should keep for a week. I’ve never tried freezing this, but I do freeze hunks of parmigiano (shrink wrapped) so I’m sure that would work. Just remember, air is the enemy.

Thank you so much for taking us to Spain with you. I enjoyed every Instagram post and story. You have exotic vacations with little kids down to a science. And this pasta looks awesome. I will be trying it after my September Whole30 is done. My mindless summer eating and boozing orgy has to end sometime so I’m taking drastic measures.

This looks so good! How ironic that I’ve recently been wanting to make this sometime-in-the-very-near-future-as-soon-as-I-have-a-free-evening-but-not-this-week-maybe-next. And now I have no more excuses.

As an aside, I’ve recently been watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on AmazonPrime. I frequently think that if Midge Masel had been born a generation or two later, she would be a successful food blogger very much like Deb Perelman.

I love the article, and it’s the same for me too. I don’t have time, there are already loads of leftovers in the fridge, there are a half-dozen excellent and cheap restaurants within a 1-block walk, and many recipes just suck (thanks to you and Americas Test Kitchen for providing so many of the exceptions!). But it is one of the rare things that I do with nearly 100% focus, and I’m so happy when it turns out well. I’m excited to make that happen again with this recipe, too. Thanks, Deb!

I generally prefer grating my own because the prepackaged stuff can often container other things to keep the cheese strands separated. This is less often the case if your grocery store does it for you. But I also like knowing what cheese I’m getting by seeing the wedge/block.

Saw this, hopped in the car for spaghetti and pecorino, came home and made it. STUNNING. Thank you so much! I used an immersion blender and only 3 tablespoons of cold water to make the paste. Other than that, I did everything as instructed and it turned out amazing!

I have made this dish many many times and would suffer from a broken sauce about half the time. I have since switched to Locatelli pecorino romano, which is aged longer than the norm. My sauce has not broken since. It’s a bit more expensive, but as Ferris Bueller says, “if you have the means, I highly recommend picking it up.”
For those interested, I sauté the pepper in 2 tbls evoo, then add the cooked pasta, pasta water, and finally the cheese (off-heat). Good luck! :)

The article at NYTimes was really great Deb. I love to cook, but sometimes I f*cking hate weeknight cooking. Cooking as an immersive pastime is soooo different to the drudgery of putting food in front of (often uncooperative) family members three times a day.

I hate having to be the president of meals, keeping a tally of what vegetables my picky toddler has eaten during the week, ensuring we have a kitchen full of staples, keeping track of how many times we’ve had takeaways and ensuring we aren’t spending too much.

I love the escape of a cooking project. The creativity of a recipe tweak. The science of baking, of browning meat, the ability to change a few ingredients into something amazing. I love the escapism and concentration.

Cooking is the best. Cooking is the worst. Weeknight dinners suck. Thank god for pizza.

Just made this! Worked a dream until I very slightly over-did it with adding the pasta water at the end though. So don’t be like me and just trust that any cheese clumps will melt without water! Even if you do, don’t worry, it will still be scrumptious :)

My boyfriend grew up in Rome and we’ve visited together many times. Cacio e Pepe is one our favorite dishes, but we’ve had problems making it at home. His dad (a restaurant owner in Rome) even gave us a lesson and we still couldn’t get it. That’s until tonight. This method for the pecorino is ingenious and it came out so so delicious. Thank you.

Your Feb 2010 between of this has been a house favorite for years. I was excited to try the update – and maybe not spend so much time on cleanup after. But this made just as much of a mess. Stringy vs clumpy doesn’t seem worth bringing it the immersion blender to clean. I’ll stick with the old one. (Still wicked delicious either way).

Thanks so much for sharing the recipe Deb! I hope your world remains forever full of cacio e pepe. But if for some reason you need a refresher course, you always have Rome. Maybe it’s time for a visit? (Personally? I went to Flavio last night, and am going again tomorrow. This is NOT what I had in mind for my September back-to-work diet!!)

Can’t remember the names of other celebrity chefs who practices this technique. Today I saw on my FB timeline Martha Stewart’s “How to Cook Pasta”. Here’s the link—https://www.marthastewart.com/973694/how-cook-pasta?utm_campaign=marthastewartliving_marthastewart_trueanthem&utm_content=5bbddbbc04d30142f9e5ce37_evergreen&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com

Can’t remember the names of other celebrity chefs who practice this method. Today, I saw on my FB timeline Martha Stewart’s “How to Cook Pasta”. Here’s the link—https://www.marthastewart.com/973694/how-cook-pasta?utm_campaign=marthastewartliving_marthastewart_trueanthem&utm_content=5bbddbbc04d30142f9e5ce37_evergreen&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com

I think I skimmed it and closed the tab because he suggests using olive oil too, which was exactly what I wanted to avoid. (I already have an inauthentic recipe on the site!)

That said, I do not doubt that with years of practice that one will succeed in knowing the exact amount of water to ladle in so it coalesces with the cheese and the exact amount of vigorous stirring required so the cheese doesn’t separate out, or this was my theory. But after all these years of flops, I’m thrilled to have a recipe that should work for everyone.

After reading this at 9:30am, I needed to make it…and proceeded to have an early lunch by 10am. I, too, have tried and ended up with the dreaded (and too-much-work-to-clean) glops of cheese goo. This technique worked wonderfully. Still had some cleanup issues in the bowl, but the smooth flavor was so worth it.

I learned to love cooking because of your blog (and books!). It was awesome to read this particular recipe and your relationship with cacio e pepe over the years, because it speaks directly to my own experience. I’ve consistently used Bon Appetit’s recipe, and have consistently faced the glop. Really excited to try this one out. Thank you for being inspirational, and such a reliable resource.

I made this tonight and way overdid it with the pepper. I took about a generous teaspoon full of peppercorns and tasted then, then grinder them in my spice grinder. I’d say I had a tablespoon of coarsely chopped pepper. Unfortunately added it all to the cheese before reading updated notes which says to taste and then add more if needed. It was on the verge of inedible. But the sauce did come together and I didn’t need much pasta water added.

Simple and delicious! I made this tonight using the fine grater Cuisinart disc to grate the pecorino and the blade to make the paste, and it worked perfectly. I also just scooped the pasta directly from the pot into a large bowl and found that enough hot water clung to the spaghetti that it easily formed a sauce. Thanks for another great recipe!

Thank you for persisting and then sharing this recipe. It is absolutely scrumptious and full of flavor. Plus it is fast to put together. I used your food processor method and it worked like a charm. For the paste 1 1/2 t. fresh ground pepper and 3 T of cold water seemed about right.

So, I followed the instructions exactly and my cheese clumped up into large globs? Admittedly I did not use pecorino romano but rather king soopers Parmesan… could that be the culprit? It was delish nonetheless just not very sexy looking. 😂

Not sure what king soopers is (a store or brand?) but it could have been that if there were other additives. Did it form a paste? Did you work the paste over the pasta before thinning it with pasta water? Let’s figure this out!

I’ve now made this once as a globby mess and once successfully. I suspect the key is being generous with the cold water in the paste and sparing with the hot water. My successful version used several tablespoons of cold water and essentially no hot water at all at the end. I’m often guilty of not reading recipes carefully, but when it says to reserve a cup of hot water that does NOT mean you use the whole cup :-)

I made this for the first time tonight and ended up with the dreaded cheese clumps too. I ended up adding it back to the pan and heating again and melted some of it but it was a bit of a disaster. Maybe I needed more water in the initial paste?

Admittedly, I was making two batches at once (one with gluten free pasta and one with regular and they really turned out the same) with the “help” of my small children so maybe too many things at once? It just sounded so simple! I used the immersion blender but had cheese flying all over my kitchen so I think I would opt for the food processor next time.

Ha! This is so awesome! I figured this out on my own, from playing around with a genius variation of fettucine alfredo I got from a church cookbook, and a pastini recipe I got from our Italian preschool teacher. (It can work with some other cheeses!)
Except I never cook the pasta so long. I bring it to a rolling boil, cover it, turn off the heat, and throw a few dish towels and potholders on top. By the time I’ve whipped up that sauce and set the table, voila! al dente perfecto! Mostly just for not making the kitchen hot in summer.
Thank you, thank you, Deb! You made my day. I love your blog, and how your posts are often little persuasive essays or satisfying little puzzles.

Hi Deb! Just curious if you’ve you heard of/tried this technique from Cook’s illustrated where they suggest using half the usual amount of water to cook the pasta so that the pasta water is starchier. It shoes up in the recipe for Spaghetti Carbonera (but interestingly not in their recipe for Cacio e pepe). Do you think this approach would that help emulsify the cheese better in Cacio e pepe as well? Asking for a friend who doesn’t own a blender….

I have heard of this technique, I’ve never used a lot of water for pasta so I’m not sure how much of a difference it makes. Without a blender, I might mince the cheese and pepper together really well, and then mince and kind of schmear the cold water in. You can form the pasta on a cutting board with a knife, just keep working it. Maybe I’ll demo it soon. :)

So glad I found this recipe! I am travelling with a fussy 14-year-old daughter who will eat pasta until it comes out of her ears but has a mother who can only ever think of pesto, meat sauce or pesto. I made this yesterday and wanted to tell you it was lovely :))) It didn’t go globby on me which was a success and also to say I had never EVER thought of toasting the peppercorns before but I did on the recommendation from you. The difference is amazing. Thanks again!

Made this last night! Was very delicious, but think I didn’t quite nail the right ratio of pasta water to paste/pasta.

One question I had: I made this with fresh pasta, do you think that could have impacted the amount of starch in the pasta water and how that could have impacted the sauciness of the final dish? Was delicious, but felt like I could have gotten the consistency just a touch better (probably just because it needed more pasta water).

This is a wonderful recipe! So quick and easy and it feels special. Loved it! Ok so here’s a confession: I started making it with my immersion blender, but the cheese was kind of flying all over the place. So I just mixed it with a wooden spoon. The cheese was well grated so that helped. The texture was perfect – just as described in the article. Also, only because my pepper mill is on it’s last legs, I used my mortar and pestle to grind up A LOT of peppercorns. The varying textures were awesome in the pasta.

I can’t wait to try this – cacio e pepe is my favorite pasta dish! One question: is there a way of knowing how much 4 oz of cheese is without having a food scale? Could you maybe give an equivalent approximation as to how many cups that comes out to when grated? I only have a giant block of Pecorino from Costco but I want to make sure I get the proportions righht!

An accurate electric, small flat, food scale is less that 20 bucks at Target or Amazon and you’ll use it so much once you have it. Deb gives all her baking recipes w/weights and its so much more accurate. I’d recommend just pulling that trigger.

It’s sooo hard because each grater type will have a different cup size for 4 ounces. About 3/4 cup? Whatever you do, don’t measure cheese grated with a microplane rasp, which will make a cloud of cheese with no weight.

And now I have the thrill of saying that you changed “my” life. I had my way with the recipe last night, and let me tell you….outrageously easy, and the best rendition of this dish EVER! Lucky for me that you decided not to give up on Cacio E Pepe, and that you found, tried and shared. Up until last night, I’d vibed with a version that used a tad of cornstarch for even emulsification. Now that seems vulgar. Oh, am I “smitten” with this newfangled pure form of Cacio E Pepe. I made the Pecorino paste a couple of hours in advance, leaving covered at room temperature. What a joy to have restaurant style pasta in the blink of an eye. Deep thanks for what you’ve shared.

Haven’t read most of the comments, so forgive me if this is a repeat. I read an online article this summer (can’t remember where – again, need to ask for forgiveness) and it narrowed down the issue to adding the water to the cheese when the water was too hot (or when your pasta is too hot, depending on your recipe). The cheese turns into glue when it is too hot, instead of just melting. I’d had your same frustrating experiences with this too, but once I started letting the water cool some, instead of trying to do everything while piping hot, it finally came together.

Temperature is crucial: not only must the cheese be at room temperature, but the cooking water that is added to loosen it must not be too hot, or “the cheese will start to coagulate and the fat will separate, creating gummy lumps on one side and watery casein on the other”, as Baccanelli and Barreca explain. Scooping it out halfway through cooking, as Roddy recommends, seems to work a treat, as does allowing the drained noodles to cool for a minute before adding them to the sauce, as in Baccanelli and Barreca’s recipe. López-Alt is not alone in combining sauce and spaghetti in a cool pan, as opposed to that the pasta was cooked in, in order to control the temperature better, although unless you’re very slow, you shouldn’t need to reheat it afterwards, as he suggests.

Ah, I tried that method too! (I wasn’t kidding when I said I would try any three-ingredient method I found anywhere at any time.) I loved that she went for authenticity. It works, but personally I find this quicker (because it takes so long to cool the pasta water, just for a, to me, questionable amount of starch in a few tablespoons), easier (sauce glues better to hotter pasta), and less risky (if you don’t cool the pasta water enough).

Totally get that. And I think the cool water blending method is a good way to address the fundamental issue of having the cheese get too hot. I’m just weighing it against my unreasonable, but almost insurmountable, reluctance to washing the food processor and it’s mean little blades.

oh my this is delicious! my husband almost always reaches for the salt with what i prepare but he devoured this without hesitation. the pepper provided a great kick- far from overwhelming but, as advertised, clearly present. and deb, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts in the times. as my mother-in-law believes, you have a career waiting as a regular contributor. cooking and baking have long provided a safe place for me, though to be clear, safe does not translate to peaceful. i have screamed, shouted and cursed, but always know the next time is just that, another opportunity to make it work. thank you again and yes, this recipe is indeed foolproof!

I made the cheese paste hours in advance, and actually kept it at room temperature, covered. I wanted the paste to be at room temperature anyway, and my rationale was that Pecorino itself would not spoil at room temperature for this relatively short duration. I had zero worries about water and pepper staying at room temperature as well :)

The cheese paste should be stretched over the pasta as much as possible before adding the hot water. You should add the pasta water very judiciously; it may not need much at all. Too much and the cheese will separate and drop into the bowl.

My husband & child had been gone all week for various reasons so I hadn’t cooked dinner once this week. Friday night comes & I have no idea what to make and very little inclination. Luckily, I saw this. Within 1/2 hour, dinner was on the table & not a drop was left. An added bonus, I really want to book a cooking class with Elizabeth Minchilli.

Made this last night and it was yummy! Instructions for the process were perfect (and cleanup wasn’t that bad!). I used about 1/2 tablespoon freshly ground pepper. Trader Joe’s sells pecorino romano already grated, so I used that. It was a bit too salty for my taste, so I ended up making the recipe with half grated parmesan and half pecorino romano.

This recipe was too good to be true for me! Rather than using my microplane like usual, I used a large box grater and put what seemed like a few peppercorns directly into the food processor–what could go wrong? Everything: the cheese wouldn’t blend and the pepper stayed mostly intact no matter how I made the processor whine. I eventually used a knife to chop it all as close to a puree as I could until the pasta was done. Needless to say, my cheese clumped, water gathered, and the pepper was sharp!

All of this to say that if you make this recipe, make sure not to try any short-cuts like me and make sure your parmesan is nice and soft first. For now, I’m sticking with the 2011 version!

Like some others (at least I’m not the only dork who screws up a ‘foolproof recipe’!), I ended up with lumps of stringy cheese in my pasta.

I followed the recipe exactly, and all seemed to be going well — the pureed cheese and pepper mixture was coating the pasta and looked even and good, but then I think it got too hot, because before I even put in any of the pasta water, it started coagulating into little lumps of stringy cheese with the rest of the pasta surrounding it, mostly naked. I mixed the pasta + cheese sauce in the pan I cooked the pasta in, so maybe that was my mistake. It tastes… *ohkay*, but I imagine it is supposed to taste much better. The only nice thing is it really did only take 20 minutes to make, so it’s not like I wasted an afternoon on a recipe that didn’t work. I’ll try again some other time…

I made this tonight and it was perfect! So easy and cozy, exactly right. I admit I added some pancetta, but only because my husband had actually requested carbonara for dinner and I didn’t feel like dealing with that particular sauce when you had just posted this!

I made this after having a hankering all week and then you posted a simple recipe! Made the cheese-pepper paste on Friday and thought the sauce was too clumpy. Then I realized that the cheese-pepper paste was too cold – room temperature would help a lot. I have now tried two more times with room temp paste and can say that is the secret! And not too much pasta water.

Some of my cheese paste formed a sauce, but some of it clumped up into stringy cheese wads. The sauce that did form was tasty and encourages me to try again. Next time I might let the pasta cool for just a minute, and make super sure that the cheese paste is evenly coating the pasta before adding any water.

Made this last night for dinner, and it turned out nearly perfect. I didn’t think about the saltiness of the cheese when cooking the pasta, and wish I hadn’t added so much salt to the cooking water. I bet this method would work well for fettucine alfredo too. I do wish I didn’t need to drag out the food processor (I have a hate/love/hate relationship with that kitchen appliance). Maybe it would work in a Vitamix too? Or maybe it’s just time to invest in an immersion blender.

i loooooove my immersion blender! i use it all the time: smoothies, dressings, sauces, granitas… it’s great to puree some or part of your soup without removing it from the pot or doing it in batches, and the cleanup is awesome, just the little wand attachment. way easier than the multiple parts of upright blenders or food processors.

This worked really well! I’m excited not just to have this new recipe but because I have several involving parmesan that are always clumpy, no matter what I try to use to help with the melting (cream, broth, etc.).

They’re so simple I can just tell you what they are: spinach pasta, chopped prosciutto, parmesan; thinly sliced asparagus, pasta, lots of pepper, parmesan.

This was brilliant!! I’ve also loved this dish but got the gloopy cheese disaster every time (i.e. random, huge hunks of half-melted cheese in some bites and no cheese in others). This worked! I used parmesan cheese with some added salt and put in pepper to taste. I ended up using all of the reserved pasta water and got a nice, saucy cheese mixture. I thank you and my stomach thanks you :)

I read to the end. Your collection of recipes has helped me enjoy my kitchen. I know your recipe will work out. If I come home from the market with blueberries, I know you will tell me a good way to use them. When I was wondering how to fix the Yukon Golds my husband just dug from our garden, I found your recipe for Easiest French Fries! Loved your oped!

I know this is sacrosanct, but for years I’ve been making this dish by bringing pasta water + a knob of butter to a simmer until creamy and THEN adding the pepper and cheese and pasta. NO sticky mess, and the cheese folds in and combines perfectly with no lumps. No additional dishes or pots and pans needed either.

Ha! I found her recipe after we got back from eating cacio e pepe nonstop in Rome over Feb break, followed the video, and ours tasted just like in Italy! It really is so simple, and my only regret is we walked right by the restaurant and didn’t go in!

I don’t know what happened. I followed the directions to the letter. I ended up with huge clumps of cheese that just would not melt. It was unsalvageable, and ended up in the trash. So disappointing. :(

We just made this for dinner, and WOW, IT WORKED! We added steamed broccoli at the tossing point (because i need vegetables), so less pasta water. It was delicious, and will enter the rotation of work-night dinners. Thank you so, so much for this!

Wow! I’m so glad I came across this recipe. I found it very easy to make. I didn’t end up adding too much hot water because things seemed to get pretty loose and creamy quickly. My batch was particularly salty. Next time, I’ll dial back the salt in my water to accommodate for the very salty pecorino romano available at my grocer.

We made this last night and it was a success: we followed the recipe exactly and it worked great. An awesome truly quick pasta recipe that is also tasty. We ate all so the microwave question I posted earlier is obsolete now :) Still, if anyone knows the answer, I’d be interested.

Perfection! I made it with Angel hair because that’s all I had in house. It was a challenge to get it mixed without ending up in a big ball, but I did it. We are sitting here with tingly tongues…thanks for another winner, Deb!

I made this twice in a week:
The first time it worked perfectly and it was delicious.
The second time I tried to make a half recipe and somehow the cheese melted and seized into chunks and did not coat the noodles.
I just ripped the cheese chunks into tiny pieces and put some parmesan on top and we ate it anyway, but I’m very curious why it might have worked the first time and not the second because I made it the same way…

So glad you were again in Spain (I live in Costa Brava very close to your last summer vacation spots) !
You mus still be in a misty “back to office since …”, because I cannot see any European measurement stuff in your recipe. Well, the principle seems simple: you weight the cheese and double the quantity in pasta …
Looking so much forward to reading your Andalucia stories. Carry on please, por favor! Marja

Made this last night. Used some pre-grated cheese from Trader Joes, combined it with around a tablespoon of fresh-ground pepper and water using an immersion blender. Seemed pretty together after 2 tablespoons of water, but since you had used 4-5, I started to wonder whether I had used enough. So I added a third tablespoon.

Immersion blender was a bit tricky, as cheese paste would get stuck in it. Maybe it was our model (Cuisinart). In any case, I got everything together. Next time I might try the food processor instead, even if it take a bit longer.

From there, everything went as expected and it turned out great. Both my sweetheart and I enjoyed it a lot.

Next time, I might not salt the pasta water quite as much, as the cheese past is already pretty salty, and adding the salty pasta water to it pushed the dish right up to the line of being too salty (but not quite 😊).

We had the pasta with a tomato and fresh Moz salad, using tomatoes and basil from our garden. That was a really nice compliment, as the acidity of the salad took a bit of the edge off the richness of the pasta dish. Just dumped some salad right in the bowl next to the past. All good. Might garnish with a little parley next time, even if it’s not traditional. I think a little color would be nice.

I made cacio e pepe successfully before I switched the brand of pasta I use. I like the taste of my new brand better, but it leaves the cooking water way less starchy. I think the extra starch used to help emulsify the sauce since it made the cooking water alone all gooey. (I used to use Wegman’s brand organic spaghetti, now I use the Field Day spaghetti) I have to try this method and see how it goes! Thanks, Deb!

I found your Instagram about 2 weeks ago and I am in heaven. I have never been much of a cook, much better at baking! I have made 5 of your recipes and have loved every single one! Last night, I braved this one. Never having made (or attempted) this type of recipe, I was intimidated. But with your detailed instructions I went for it. And it was amazing! And gave me new confidence in my skills! Thank you for sharing your delicious and different recipes!

Was excited when this recipe came out & yesterday I made this with freshly grated Parmesan, dry toasted peppercorns, and reduced salt in pasta water. Served with a side of garlicky spinach. Made paste earlier in the day, chilled for a bit, then brought back to room temp while prepping dinner. It came out really great! I didn’t need to use much of the reserved pasta water after/while tossing with the cheese paste. The bowl I tossed the pasta in was tough to clean; maybe will try soaking longer next time.

As ever with Deb and this blog, delicious flavor. But I failed to achieve perfect creaminess. There were still chunks of melted cheese that i could not incorporate fully into the pasta even with more hot pasta water. I think maybe I needed to blitz the sauce more fully in a regular Cuisinart with the big-ass blade instead of the mini so that the cheese really broke down. All that said, come on it’s pasta and cheese – satisfying and super tasty.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I had an Italian parent of a child in my class track down some tasty pecorino for me (we live in Germany, and it can be hard to come by…) and this dish was a hit. Not only with me, but with my meat-lover husband AND my picky toddler. I’ve been dreaming of this dish every since I first heard of it 4 years ago. I was not disappointed!

I had never eaten cacio e pepe, but this sounded wonderful, so I knew I had to try it and spent $11 on the little wedge of cheese. It sat in the fridge for a few days waiting for me to make up my mind about which immersion blender to buy. In the end, they all sounded flawed in some way, and I chickened out on buying one. But rereading your post, I decided if I shred the cheese first, my (manual) food processor might do the mixing job just fine. It did! I first shredded the Pecorino Romano using the side of the grater with the tiny four-point stars. That took 5-10 minutes. But then it was a cinch to mix with the pepper and cold water. Having watched the video you linked, I was confident going into the mixing stage, and I THINK it turned out fine, although it’s my first experience with this dish, so who knows! I hope the leftovers reheat well because I want this again tomorrow! And my picky two-year-old kept asking for more.

I find it hard to credit that it’s been 7 years since I started reading and cooking from your site. This post reminded me that it was a quest for a recipe for Cacio e Pepe that led me here in the first place. We had been on a visit to NY and I’d fallen in love with the dish as served at Lupa. I was never able to reproduce it to my satisfaction but I’m ready to try again.
I’ve made many, many recipes from your site with great success. I thank you (as does my husband) for all those years of good eating.

This is off topic from cacio e pepe (which is amazing – thank you!), but I am so excited to hear about Andalucia… I’m in the midst of planning a trip to Spain next summer and would of course love to hear about yours!

I’ve been reading (and using!) your recipes for years. I’ve loved following your beautiful little family. Your daughter was born just a few weeks after mine, so I’ve enjoyed watching them grow together (in a hours apart, have never met kind of way, but you know what I mean).

I found your op-ed piece a week or so before you mentioned it here, and it got me thinking about how to maintain that meditative peace you mention when your little cherubs are “helping” in the kitchen. I’m sure you know that’s a whole different ballgame!

As easy and delicious as promised. Didn’t have enough parm., so used a bit of Gruyere to make up the difference, and used orechiette instead of spaghetti, and it earned raves at the table. Next time I’ll keep the orechiette but use all parm. A keeper. Thank you for a beautiful website.

Ah yes thank you for acknowledging the dreaded pile of cheese on my pasta tongs and not on the pasta! Excited to try this and now that you have brought it to light, it makes so much sense! I usually do this same technique with homemade pesto- get it really thick and paste like and then stir it into the pasta and thin later. Brilliant!

This really worked! I made the old one you posted several times, but to be honest it always bothered me as well, but I figured it was one of those restauranty butter/oil combos.
This was incredibly rich and the texture was perfect. Thank you!

Perfection. Followed the instructions to the letter and it was the cacio e pepe of this carb-craving pregnant lady’s dreams. Having this by myself for lunch while my toddler napped made me *almost* feel like I was back in Italy… nah, who am I kidding, I would need a couple negronis before that could happen. Counting down to when negronis can come back into my life, but until then, this cacio e pepe is making me very, very happy. Thanks Deb!

I’ve made the old version of this recipe as well as this one both with diasterous results. The old has all the problems described, but this one came out watery (I barely used a ladle of water) and had dollops of the “cheese frosting” that refused to melt or incorporate. They just got stringy. I’m not sure how I could’ve mixed this better (tried tossing with tongs and the two fork technique), but I’d love some help.

Because some people will have a softer “paste” than others, it’s not an exact science but if your cheese paste is spreading fine over the pasta, don’t ladle on more water — it’s not needed. The pasta needs to be piping hot, right from the boiling water.

Ok, so I made this. The first time, I spent a small fortune on cheese, and it came together like a dream and I ate it after I put the baby to bed and it was a miracle. The second time, I used ‘meh’ cheese (it was still a triangle, so i had to grate it, but it was budget parm) and it clumped and then got sticky and was awful. I still ate it with wine while the baby slept, but I learned my lesson– quality ingredients really are worth it! Thanks for the new technique, Deb, and helping me learn :)

I had tried and failed to make every Cacio e Pepe recipe the internet could provide me. Tears were shed each time I attempted this dish because I would fail so miserably and waste x amount of dollars worth of cheese and pasta. Until I ran across yours! It is truly foolproof and soooo delicious. I wouldn’t change a thing, thank you!

This is delicious. I made the cheese / pepper mixture and then realized I didn’t have any spaghetti. Oops. I served it with penne and loved it. I made the cheese paste in a food processor, as I can’t picture how an immersion blender would work with so little liquid.

Just made this and sadly it didn’t work for me. I think it went south after I added some pasta water(1-2 Tbsp). Made the paste mid aft. and let it sit at room temp til dinner. I reserved the pasta water 3 min before pasta was done, then tossed pasta and paste for a good 3 min. At this point it looked pretty good, but somewhat dry so feeling rather confident I tossed in the water. Clumps started forming, tried adding more paste, more water. All I got was more clumps. It was very tasty tho. My wok used for tossing is soaking in sink.

I didn’t use an immersion blender this time. Instead, I mashed the water, cheese, and pepper with a fork. I don’t know enough about emulsification. . . do you think the blender does something that the fork doesn’t?

I took “foolproof” too literally and added too much pasta water at once at the end. It basically rinsed the cheese off the pasta but it was still delicious! Next time I’ll be a little more careful, lol.

I am so excited to try this recipe. I have experienced the same melted cheese on pot mess as described by all. Thank you for sharing.

Question: I want to make this for a larger group this weekend. Do you think I can just double the recipe and make it all at once? Or should I make in batches to make sure the sauce melts? I am referring only to the end mixing step, I will definitely make a larger batch of the cheese paste.

Amazeballs! My son and I watched the video, and I made it exactly as is (with the exception of doubling the recipe). The bowl was clean! This was so fast, simple, and delish, that I’m sure it’ll become a staple in my house.

I’ve been waiting for one of those desperate-but-still-wants-actual-dinner nights. And here we were. This is brilliant. I actually worked off the process by memory rather than sensibly referencing back and used warm water in my food processor, but all turned out just fine. Creamy, peppery, silky pasta. Actual dinner. It’s good for the spirits.

I was inspired to make this over the weekend by a random internet comment that had nothing to do with food. I’m SO happy I did and I also feel like I finally understand cacio e pepe! This was delicious, simple, and super easy. Also, I made mine with pre-grated parmesan and thin fettuccine noodles and it was still delicious so I can’t wait to try again with a proper block of pecorino romano!! (It’s actually pretty tasty when reheated, but definitely better fresh.)

Foolproof! After too many failed lumpy, clumpy attempts at cacio e pepe, this recipe answered my prayers. One slight change: I “bloomed” the pepper in 4-5 tbsps on warm olive oil, then used the oil in the place of the cold water.

I halved the recipe, made it in a mini-food processor, about an hour before I got around to pasta cooking so it came to room temp. Mixed with piping hot pici. Blended right in and barely needed any pasta water. I couldn’t be happier!! Thanks! No more glop.

Thank you for sharing this. I am about to move into my own apartment and am looking for recipes so I can begin working on my “barely there” culinary skills. Cacio e pepe is my favorite pasta and while the ingredients are minimal, I think that might make it even harder to perfect. Thank you for sharing this recipe! I am excited to try and will report back :)

This has been my story with potato gnocchi, I’ve only once made light fluffy clouds that melt in your mouth and have been trying it for years with no idea what was different that one time. Can you share if you figure that one out too?

Great recipe! I’ve also tried about 10 different versions – I found it also works well to take out some pasta water halfway through the pasta cooking, let the water cool for a few minutes, then add it to the cheese and pepper in a separate bowl and whisk it in – this makes a nice creamy sauce. However, I’ve found adding hot pasta actually makes the cheese clump, whereas letting the pasta cool for a minute or two helps it blend with the sauce better.

Thank you so much for this very helpful recipe and explanation! I’ve been trying to make classic Cacio e Pepe for years and have always ended up throwing in the towel and adding olive oil, butter, or cream…which all stick to the bowl, not the noodles. This technique really does yield perfect pasta, every time.

Deb – I have gone to you so many times before when wanting to try a new recipe. This is my husband’s absolute favorite food when we go out for Italian. I am a good cook but he likes things “just so”. He loved this recipe. It was so easy to execute.

One note that may be obvious to others but wasn’t to me, I used a porcelain bowl and will definitely warm it next time before putting the pasta in to help keep the pasta hot.

This was SO good! Just like I had in Rome on my honeymoon. So glad you included that you used 46 grinds of pepper, I used that as my jumping off point and I ended up using 56! Thank you so much for sharing!!

I just made this for dinner tonight with fresh homemade pasta. I am not one to write reviews, but this was an outstanding recipe! I followed the directions exactly and everything came out perfectly. The sauce was smooth and creamy, no clumps of cheese which was something I was worried might happen. Thank you so much, this one is a keeper!

Delicious! The sauce is so creamy and coated the pasta perfectly with this method. I put hot water in the mixing bowl while pasta cooked. Hot noodles, hot bowl, cheese paste, and voila. Perfecto. Thanks Deb!!

I am a beginning (75 year old) cook. I have recently been roped into doing my fair share in the kitchen, which somehow ends up being Tuesday and Thursday nights. I made this recipe tonight. My wife and I agreed it tasted like plain pasta. I think I may have grated too little cheese. It seemed like a lot was left stuck to the immersion blender. My wife ( very experienced cook— knew about the recipe as soon as I mentioned it to her) had a good idea: dump the pasta in the same bowl you mix the cheese and pepper in— that way nothing is left behind in the mixing bowl. Her other idea: after tossing the melange, put it back in the hot spegghati pot, maybe even with a little heat, to keep it warm.

Did you, perhaps, use a microplane zester/grater? If so, it can produce what will look like a lot of cheese but is actually very little (because it’s so fluffy). I wonder if that was the culprit in it not seeming cheesy enough.

Deb – since the descriptor says “fool proof”
I’m embarrassed to ask this question but will anyway. I made this last night and as I was halfway into stirring the cheese/pepper paste into the noodles it began to form into a robbery glob that I couldn’t dissolve.
The mix seemed to be the right consistency.
What went wrong??

So good. I made this with preshredded parmesan, using a mini foodprocessor. For one person – a scant 1/2 cup of parm, 25 grinds of pepper and 3+ tablespoons of water. Pulse in the mini processor (make sure that you scrape the sides often). Would probably have been even better with pecorino.

I made this tonight. Sadly this method didn’t work for me. I had lots of clumped cheese. Maybe I added too much cooking water and too soon?

The only method that has worked for me to get that silky sauce and no clumps is adding cooking water, a fat and the grated cheese to a sauce pan, and once the sauce is combined, I add the pasta.
I’m curious to try this method again to try and get it right but it’s such a bummer to get clumps.

I made this with my own recipe and it was a dismal failure!! As I read your post I just kept saying “yes”, “Yes”, “oh Yes.” Everything that you said went wrong went wrong for me. Even though my family is Italian, my mom and grandmother never made this dish. My Dad had it in Rome at a wonderful place on the Via Veneto where he insisted we lunch every day that we were in Rome. He alternated between Cacio e Pepe and their amazingly thin pizza. I tried to capture the dish so many times and had the cheese issues you mentioned every time. I ruined so many sponges trying to clean it up. lol I think this recipe may be it and I am trying it tonight. I don’t have any pecorino, but I have a nicely aged reggiano parmesan which will be fine. Love your blog and wish my blog didn’t have to be about living with IBS, but c’est la vie. My daughter has your cookbooks and loves them.

I am eating this for the first time right now, and it’s delicious!! I watched the video on Elizabeth Minchilli’s site, and it really helped. My advice is: don’t be shy about using all the mixture the first time you make this and adjust the next time if it’s too heavy or overpowering. I’d like to add more, but that ship has sailed because the pasta isn’t hot enough anymore.

I think this is perfect for two as an entire meal with a garlicky sautéed green, like broccolini or spinach, or for four as a small, rich appetizer before a lighter meal, such as fish, clams, or chicken with a caper sauce, or a salad with tuna on it, as an example.

I am a HUGE fan of yours and have always found most every recipe of yours to be foolproof. Sadly the one that’s called foolproof didn’t work for me!! I followed it to the t, and had so much clumping well before the water was added. I was moving the pasta around like a madwoman but nothing helped. The water then just made it worse and I had stringy cheese and peppery water. I ended up putting it all back in the pot and heating it up – it tasted ok but I think much of the cheese and pepper was left behind. Ugh.

I made this and Deb speaks the truth! My only addition was salt. I had cacio e pepe a few weeks ago in a popular Atlanta restaurant and no doubt the batch I just made from SK was better. And, I timed myself 17 minutes start to finish. Good quality pecorino is a must. I used A LOT of pepper but didn’t measure.

Hi Deb,
I read this article with interest because it explains your process for the cheese sauce. I did not make this recipe, but I made your corn cacio e pepe from July 2019 issue of Bon Appetit. (Your Corn cacio e Pepe is not to be found on this site???).

I wanted to look you up to ask what I did wrong in that recipe because I never got to the “glossy sauce “ stage. The cheese clumped together with the corn into tasty bites of cheesy corn and then there was the naked pasta. I did like the flavor and simplicity (if it worked ) but it didn’t. In BA you say to blend the cheese, pepper and water together with a fork until it resembles cream cheese, I never got a smooth cream cheese-like consistency, it stayed a grainy lump. But in this article you say to use an immersion blender. Is that the secret?

I read the 2 reviews on BA’s site and they got the same result I did.

I know you can’t respond to every email, but I want to make sure I see your answer to this.

I’m sorry you had trouble. The trouble I see in the comment on the recipe on BA is same as comments here from people who had a problem and it’s happening when too much water is added. A thick paste sticks to pasta; a loose one may not. However, if yours didn’t get a smooth paste, it’s more likely due to the grind of the cheese. It’s important that the cheese is very finely grated (microplane or the smallest holes on a box grater were in my original instructions but things have to get cut for space sometimes and other times just because they found it not necessary in additional testing at BA) or it won’t mash smooth. If you don’t have very finely grated cheese, I’d use a food processor or immersion blender instead. Hope this helps for next time. I’ll be doing a video or Instagram demo over there soon which I hope will make things more clear.

I make your old version of cacio e pepe regularly and, while I occasionally get a minor clump or two, we’ve always loved the taste. That recipe doesn’t use cream (it has butter and oil), despite your headnote. I do recall that Cook’s Illustrated had a recipe that relied on it, though?

My question, however, is about the change in proportions. Both versions use 4 oz of cheese, but this new one is for half a pound of pasta, versus a full pound in the old recipe. Can you talk about the change? A half pound of pasta isn’t enough for my family, but I try to be frugal with expensive cheese and 8 oz of good pecorino seems a little spendy!

I just made this and it worked absolutely perfectly, and was delicious. And it was so easy! I grated the cheese with the grating blade of the food processor, and then made the paste with the normal chopping blade. I needed only the tiniest amount of the reserved pasta water at the end.

Good morning Kit. My Italian G.F told me they used to make a spaghetti pie as follows. 3 Ingredients, a doz eggs, as they were plentiful in Italy, a cup and a half of pecorino grated, and a pound of spaghetti. Beat the eggs, add tons of pepper and the grated pecorino then the cooked pasta al dente. Bake in a pie plate or loaf pan at 375 for an hour. This was a dish the poorer families made for lent.
It is delicious.

I was inspired to finally give this a try after seeing your instagram live yesterday. I did everything you did exactly, except I used parmesan instead of pecorino. Sadly, as I tossed the cheese/pepper paste with the pasta before adding the water, a thick layer of the cheese developed on the bottom of the bowl, and some clumps simply wouldn’t dissolve at all. Could this be that I used parm instead of pecorino? I refuse to give up!